My Nothing, Our Everything and I
by AdlockedMrsCumberbatch
Summary: After Mary's true identity was exposed, John loses everything he thought he knew, but can he and Mary put the past in the past and rescue a relationship built from lies? Oneshot, basically the conversation from the Christmas scene in His Last Vow but from John's POV. Johnary, Warstan, whatever. K rated but not boring, I promise!


**This is a bit different from my usual stuff, namely because it's Warstan and not Adlock, but I watched His Last Vow today and this scene was just too amazing to pass over- it was a pretty inspirational scene. Anyway, I had too many feels, so this happened.**

***Dislclaimer: I do not own Sherlock or its characters, any and all rights belong to the BBC***

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"I'll go and see if I can help with…some thing or another…"

Sherlock's Dad made himself scarce, looking a little scared of what was about to unfurl. I didn't blame him. I wished I could just scuttle out of the room like that, back to a cosy level of festive domesticity. Back to a roomful of happy people, untroubled people; normal people (well, as normal as the Holmes' got) with a normal history, normal occupations, and normal relationships not built from lies. Standing in the doorway of the Holmes' family living room, I wanted nothing more than to be normal. But normality was always something that just escaped my grasp- slipped through my fingers like sand. Back on…_that night…_Sherlock said it was because of who I am and what I like. I attract danger, baggage, dark secrets…general abnormalities, and that was why I could never settle down and have a normal life. The arrogant sod is probably right (he almost always is), but I prefer to think of it as pure bad luck. At least that way I can keep hoping for a lucky break.

So I didn't turn around and follow Mr Holmes the senior out. I swallowed down my cowardice and I crossed the threshold into the room in which sat my heavily pregnant, beautiful, funny, lying, murderous assassin wife. The memory stick felt impossibly heavy in my pocket.

"So…" I began, my voice sounding strained under the weight of all the things left unsaid. They couldn't go unsaid any longer. I had watched her grow steadily away from me, and even after everything that had happened I couldn't let the gap between us grow any larger. It hurt too much.

"So, are you alright?" It was a feeble opening line, but I could do no better. I didn't have the words to construct a more elaborate sentence, and the dry, sarcastic wit that had always dripped from my tone had dried up long ago.

She still had plenty of sarcasm left over. But it was saturated with malice and contempt and every word stung me.

"Oh? Are we doing conversation today? It really is Christmas!" she spat, in voice sugared to sweeten the bitterness behind the words.

I didn't have the heart to reply, and I couldn't think of one anyway. Actions, for me, have always spoken louder than words, so I simply withdrew the memory stick from my pocket. It was cold to the touch. How fitting.

Her face fell at the sight of it, and I saw her confidence fall away, a second skin that she shed involuntarily, leaving her vulnerable and exposed. She covered it up with an incredulous laugh, but it was a façade. She couldn't pretend we were fine and there was nothing that needed saying any longer. Neither could I.

"Now? Seriously, months of silence, and we're going to do this _now?" _I knew what she meant. It was Christmas. This was the one day of the year when we _should _be pretending. Normal people would carry on regardless at Christmas. But as I said, normality has always slipped through my fingers; we were not normal people.

"So have you read it?" she asked in a weak voice which betrayed how scared she really felt.

"Would you come here a moment?" I asked, not looking at her face but at the memory stick. I traced her initials with my fingers. The _real_ her.

"No, tell me, have you?" she pressed, shaking her head and not looking at me either.

I couldn't help it: "JUST-"

My voice rose, so eager to release all I was holding in, but shouting was going to help nothing, so I collected myself and went to the other extreme; my voice dropped to a near whisper.

"Come here."

She came, slowly and reluctantly, but I had half expected her to refuse, so it was a small victory which gave me the courage to carry on. She stood in front of me and for the first time I plucked up the courage to look her in the eye. I wish I didn't, because I'll never forget what I saw there: the defeat, the look of lost anguish that I, _I, _was causing her. I vowed to myself then and there that if this went well I would spend my life doing everything I could to _never _see that look again.

"I've thought long and hard about what I want to say to you," I began, nervously. "These are prepared words, Mary and I've chosen these words with care." My voice cracked as I uttered her name. That name used to be my everything. That name used to be so familiar, so comforting. That name meant home, that name meant happiness, and that name was the reason I lived and breathed. I used to think I knew it and the person I _thought _it belonged to like the back of my hand. It used to be not a separate name, but an extension of my own, just as she was not a separate entity but an extension of me. We were John and Mary, and just John on its own sounded strange and alien and completely wrong. I thought I knew her so well, but as it turned out, I didn't know her at all. Mary wasn't my everything, she was my nothing. I wanted to change that more than I've ever wanted anything in my life, and I was going to damn well change it or die trying.

I looked away; I couldn't look at _that look _anymore. But then she spoke.

"Ok," She said, and the wary hopefulness that dripped from that one everyday word inspired me to look back up. She was giving me a chance.

I took a deep breath. This was it, what we had been building up to for months, and suddenly I just wanted it over with.

"The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future are my privilege."

I saw a spark return to her eyes, a flicker of hope injected into her hopeless gaze.

"That's all I have to say, and that's all I need to know. No I didn't read it."

I threw the memory stick into the fire and thought 'good riddance'. It was true, I didn't need to know what terrible things she had done, and I didn't want to. Knowing would ruin my perfect image of _my _Mary, taint the memories we had made together, and I didn't want that. A.G.R.A was in the past, and I didn't want the past leaking into the future. Not knowing was the only way I could shut her off for good. In this case, for once, Mary being my nothing was better than her being my everything, because blank canvases can be painted, but paintings can't be turned back into blank canvases. Mary's was the same; nothings can be turned into everythings, but everythings can't be turned into nothings.

"You don't even know my name." She whispered, tears beginning to spill down her cheeks.

"Is Mary Watson good enough for you?" I asked, even though I was half afraid to know the answer.

As it was, I needn't have worried.

"Yes!" she cried. "Oh God, yes!"

And then she was in my arms and my head was on her shoulder, and her swelled belly, our little child- our everything- was pressed against me. We were a family of three, merged into one.

I felt a weight lift from my shoulders and I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding. It was as if I had been carrying _my _Mary around for the past few months. _My _Mary, the Mary who was part of me, had been killed on _that night,_ but not severed from the rest of my being. Since then, I had been carrying her dead weight. A different Mary took her place, a stranger, an empty shell which I was yet to learn how to fill, but by speaking with her then in the Holmes' living room, I breathed life back into her. I filled the shell of the real Mary with the dormant body of _my _Mary, and I didn't have to carry her anymore. My life seemed ten times lighter and I created in that moment a person who was both true and mine. Rather than them being separate people, A.G.R.A had been amalgamated with Mary Morstan, and I knew we had turned over a new leaf. This was a fresh start for all three of us.

My nothing, our everything and I.

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**A/N: just to clear up, 'that night' that was repeatedly referred to in this fic was the night in His Last Vow that Sherlock and Mary met at Leinster Gardens, when it was revealed who she really was. Anyway, thanks for reading and please, please, please review! **

**~AdlockedMrsCumberbatch.**


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